


And it's worth it, it's divine

by RevWritesShittyFics



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 06:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15136673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RevWritesShittyFics/pseuds/RevWritesShittyFics
Summary: She should say something but she doesn’t, she should calm down but she doesn’t, she loves him but she-Well. He’s always been her exception, after all.—It’s a little more bearable, now that the rain has started to pour and his hand is on her waist.





	And it's worth it, it's divine

**Author's Note:**

> MIDNIGHT SPOILERS
> 
> (also a valdug fic, so if that isn't your cup of tea, this might not be for you)!

She knows it’s a battle she can’t win, but she tries regardless. She forces her head against the Bentley’s window, feels it bump against it on the uneven road, but she closes her eyes anyway and tries, really tries to calm her thoughts and sleep.   
  
She’s been doing the same thing for the past hour now, lifting her head from the window and blinking lazily at the occasional light that distracts her from the blackness of the night. A familiar pang of shame makes itself known as she finds herself wishing her thoughts were as clear as the night. But of course they aren’t, so she’s been doing her best to shut her eyes and keep them shut, but her thoughts prove to be a constant distraction.   
  
She tries again. Leans her head against the Bentley’s window, feels it bump painfully against the glass, but she’s unrelenting in her efforts. She shuts her eyes.   
  
_This isn’t a recent thing._   
  
She screws her eyes shut.   
  
_This wasn’t Cadaverous._

She takes a shaky breath, fools herself into thinking that all she has to do is ignore the thoughts for a mere few minutes to fall into torpor.  

_What did you see?_   
  
And of course she’s shaking now, the reaction of her body all too painfully similar to what she had experienced when she first found out. At least this time she’s not flying through the air, ripping her hair out, screaming her grief into existence. But it still isn’t easy.   
  
_We’ll fix her. We’ll make her better._

Kes’s voice begins to ring throughout her head, and Valkyrie tries, she really does, _good god-_

_What if it’s all just wishful thinking?_ ****  
****

Now finally, she mutters a curse, accepts failure, and sits up and goes back to staring out at the road ahead. When she feels his gaze on her though, she switches her attention to peering out of the side window instead. 

“Can’t sleep?” he asks her, forcing an all too casual tone into his voice, like he hasn’t noticed how she’s been stuck on a sleepless loop for the past hour.   
  
She nods, knows he’s waiting for a reply, but never gives him one.   
  
Maybe, she thinks, once this surprise meeting with China at the unreasonable hour of three in the morning is over, he’ll drive her home, and she’ll sleep then. 

He had asked her to stay at his place tonight, but she can already feel her mind forming a lazy excuse, so she knows she won’t. She ignores the sinking feeling she gets when she realizes she doesn’t know how to tell him that she can't, that she has to let him down again, just like she has on the numerous occasions she assured him she’d stay, only to later leave.  ****  
****

 

  _I just… I don’t understand. Is something wrong?_

_No, no I- I’m sorry, Skulduggery, but I can’t tonight._

_Valkyrie-_

_Please._

She shakes out her hands and pretends like she’s shaking out her thoughts as well.

His place or not, she knows she won’t sleep, but she forces the realization out of her head, not ready to deal with the frustration over top of everything else she’s feeling. Hell, she can’t help but think that maybe she deserves to stay awake, deserves to suffer indefinitely. She feels as if her heart’s just dropped into the pit of her stomach, and of course this is an all too familiar, but still horrible, feeling. She had heard somewhere, years ago, about how the human body adapts. She thinks that It was either a lie or there truly is something wrong with her, because the guilt explodes within her chest, she feels herself momentarily stop breathing, and of course it’s started again.

Her breath quickens, her chest has begun to  rise and fall rapidly, and she’s too tired to fight the beginnings of another panic attack.   
  
Her thoughts that waited patiently in the back of her mind have started crawling forward, inch by inch, engulfing her in an odd sort of darkness which her body is unable to fight. As her thoughts move forwards and make their presence known, her body starts to fail her as she refuses to fight, and she can’t stop her shoulders from slacking, her head from lolling forward. She lets out a single long breath, like it’s the last one she’ll ever take. And god, she hopes, please _please_ let this be the last one, it’s too much, it’s what she deserves, she’s too tired, she wants to slip away, _fuck_ \-   
  
A hand on top of hers, and the thoughts inside of her mind jolt as if they’ve been struck by lightning. The fingers of his hand gently slip between the gaps of her own, and now he’s entwined his fingers with hers. He squeezes, and her thoughts jolt again, now scampering to the recesses of her mind, where they hide and wait patiently for another opportunity. This time, her mind has failed to ruin her, stopped yet again because of him and him only. She wonders now like she has many times before about what would happen to her if he wasn’t there to be her anchor when she could feel herself slipping away. 

His hand, so cold, so bony, provides her a comfort that no one else would understand.

She turns to him and stares. Though she is temporarily calmed, she struggles to muster a reply. She knows he knows this, so he gently brushes his thumb across her skin, a silent reassurance that he understands. She manages to give him a tired smile in return. It only barely reaches her eyes, though.

Silence has always felt suffocating to her. It’d scare her, as it was the time where her thoughts would take advantage of the fact that there wasn’t a single noise, a single disruption, that could stop their slow destructive descent. But now, the silence is unable to hurt her as Skulduggery’s hand grips her own and doesn’t let go.

For once, a familiar feeling doesn’t cause her harm.

  
***

They still have a long drive to go before they reach Roarhaven. Valkyrie for one, has since given up on sleep hours before, and now resorts to staring aimlessly through the dark night. A different feeling has started to grow inside of her, one of irritation and restlessness from being sat in a static position in the Bentley for quite a few hours now. She fidgets, curses, taps her foot while Skulduggery, seemingly unperturbed by spending so long in one place, is calm and quiet.

Her phone buzzes and she nearly cries in relief, scrambles to unlock her phone, thankful for the distraction.

When she sees who the text is from, she isn't so thankful anymore.

Her mom. Her mom is asking her if she's alright, if she'll join them for dinner soon.

Valkyrie stares, just continuously stares at the message, and is stricken by déjà vu as she remembers that the feeling she's feeling right now is the exact same one she had months ago, when she was struggling to reconnect with her family after being away for five years. Naturally, since seeing Alice without an aura, all Valkyrie's managed to do is maintain some sort of pathetic relationship with her family over texts, but she can't find the courage to face them again. They're worried and she knows it, and the contrition within her only gets worse.

Regrettably enough, she remembers now what Skulduggery had told her months ago. He assured her that she was making progress with her family, that she was proving to be capable of balancing it all. She believed him then, and now the hole within her chest grows.

“Everything alright?” Skulduggery asks her, immediately noticing her sudden stillness.

Valkyrie thinks for much too long on what to tell him, and knows that lying to him now after hesitating for so long would be futile. She also knows though, that even if she hadn't hesitated, he would've still seen right through her.

So she shrugs, tries to be as nonchalant as she can. “Mum texted. She's asking when I'll be coming over for dinner.” As she speaks, she notices how her voice sounds hollow, how her words seem casual and yet her tone implies that this means so much more. And it does.

He nods once, takes a few seconds to respond. “Will you be joining them, then?”

She's back to staring out the window now, finding once again that she can’t look at him. Whether it’s out of shame, guilt, or if she just can’t face him, she doesn’t know. She breathes out once, controlled, and almost fools herself into thinking that she's perfectly fine.

What was it she had called herself once? A basket case. Right, that's what she was.

She can't find the words for some reason, struggles to open her mouth to say a simple no, so she shakes her head instead. He turns his head towards her fully now, stares at her intently.

Her head is starting to once again become a jumbled mess and suddenly, her mind is filled with words, words that don’t make sense to her. But of course they don’t, because her mind has started caving, once again overcome by a feeling she’s never been able to explain. But then again, even if she could explain it, she knows she never would. It’s an age old instinct she’s had since she first stepped into this world - mourn, grieve, _feel_ silently. That’s what she taught herself she has to do to survive, but more importantly, what she had to do to get him to see her as worthy of being her partner. And he did, and here she is now. Here she is, in a constant state in which on the rare occasion that she can put what she’s feeling into words, she chooses to respond in anger instead, closes herself off, just like he had unknowingly and unintentionally taught her to do.

She hopes Kes won’t use this against her the next time they talk.

“We’re still hours away from the stupid meeting with China. I haven't slept for a single fucking minute Skulduggery, and once I get home, I know I won't be able to then either. And I know you know why I can't be around my family right now so don't look at me like that-” she starts, notices how her words are unintentionally biting, hates herself for snapping at him. She sees him about to respond, and she curses herself in her mind, but her frustration, her grief, her anger has returned and she can't stop.

She also notices how his hand gripping hers has loosened somewhat, and suddenly the guilt swells within her, she feels oddly desperate, and so she continues.

“I-I know we have so much to do but we’ve made no progress so far. And we can’t afford to make the same mistakes this time, because… _Alice_ , Skulduggery, god-” her voice cuts off, starts to get quieter and quieter. She doesn’t know how she’s going to continue, while the lump in her throat is determined to crack her voice and give _everything_ away to him.

So she surprises herself and him by laughing instead. She shakes her head slightly, can feel a cold, bitter smile beginning to form.

“Have you ever wondered what comes next? What happens _if_ we find a cure? Am I supposed to go back to pretending like I’m not the shittiest daughter alive?”

“We _will_ find a cure Valkyrie, I promised-”

“Stop. _Stop,_ ” she cuts him off. So subservient he is to her and her only, the moment the words come out of her mouth, he’s snapped his jaw shut, understands immediately that for her sake he can’t continue speaking. He has, after all, known her for over thirteen years now.

She sees his one hand on the steering wheel twitch.

He still refuses to release his other hand from hers. It doesn’t feel so right anymore.

She doesn’t feel any different from what she had felt when Cadaverous had given her a phone call in the Midnight Hotel, when he had told her she still had a long way to go before she could reach her sister. The desperation, her jumbled thoughts, her grief, it's all the same.

“I see you had no retort to my self deprecation back there,” she continues, all the while wishing she had duct tape over her mouth. She’s speaking on auto pilot, she isn’t in control anymore.

There was a certain relief she had felt years ago, when Darquesse left her for good. Sure there was the emptiness she was too ashamed to admit, but it was nice to not have another voice in her head that would come out and command everything she did.

It turns out, that even without Darquesse, she isn’t in control.

“That’s because you didn’t allow me the chance to-”

“I wasn’t wrong though, was I? All I’ve ever managed to do for my own fucking family is-” and this time, she’s the one who’s cut off, because Skulduggery’s suddenly yanking the wheel to the left, and now the Bentley’s spinning quickly, her head hits the window, and the sound of screeching tires fill her ears. Just seconds later, the Bentley is moving smoothly again, but they're going the wrong way.

They aren’t even on a road anymore.

Skulduggery's driven the Bentley off the road and into the countryside, and now the tires are cutting through tall grass, the grassland even bumpier than the road. From what she can gather, what with her thirteen years of being a detective, there was absolutely no reason for him to have done what he just did.

Her previous, regretful conversation with him just moments ago is forgotten as she snaps her head towards him and glares. “What the hell,” she hisses, “are you doing?”

He shrugs, and this simple gesture serves to infuriate her even further.

“Since when have we ever done meetings, Valkyrie?”

She frowns at him now.

“We aren't going to see China? Then where the hell are you taking me?”

He laughs, and she feels her frustration come back as she struggles to stop the smile from spreading across her face at the sound of his laughter which she notices, she doesn't hear much of anymore.

And what an awful time to realize now, she thinks, that this is the first man, the _only_ man who’s made her so angry, so happy, so confused, so _in love-_

She immediately beats away her thought with a mental stick. She stabs it as hard as she can, destroys it, before it goes any further as to make her blush.

She really wishes she had her trusty mugs right now.

“Rest assured, we were on our way back to Roarhaven, but I simply don't feel like attending this meeting anymore,” he responds, casually, like it’s no big deal that they’re skipping a meeting that China deemed mandatory.

She had said she found some new, vital information about Abyssinia and, more specifically, Caisson, thus the importance of their attendance.

Valkyrie doesn’t fail to notice how they’re skipping a meeting about Caisson. She knows he’s doing it on purpose, and so she doesn’t question him. She knows him well enough by now to understand that he needs this.

She nods once, purses her lips and takes a while before responding in the only way she sees fit.

“Skulduggery,” she speaks slowly, “you're not kidnapping me, are you?”

He shrugs, yet again. “Something like that.”

And suddenly, the Bentley stops, right in the middle of nowhere. They're surrounded by black skies and tall grass and what appears to be nothingness around them. He gets out of the car and she sighs, and does the same. Once she's out, she has a hard time with her eyes adjusting to the gloom but when they do, she notices him standing close to her, with his hand outstretched.

She looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. Now he lets out an exasperated sigh, comes forward and grips her hand, pulls her towards him.

“If you hadn't noticed by now, Arbiter Cain, we’re going to dance,” he replies smoothly.

She blinks, can't even form a retort to his insult, just lets him guide her away from the car.

“I-I’m…I, Skulduggery, there isn’t even any music,” she stutters, laughs nervously. She knows she shouldn’t be so jittery, they’ve danced before. They’ve done the salsa, but then again, it was brief and they weren’t alone.

And now here they are, in pitch black darkness, completely alone, the only apparent noise coming from the occasional cars that pass on the roadway far from where they are. There’s a gentle breeze moving the blades of grass that brush against her calves and blow about her hair. She’s too shocked, too utterly nervous to even care about her hair that blows against her face, making it difficult for her to see him and thankfully making it difficult for him to see her coloured cheeks.

Valkyrie’s breathing hard and trying not to turn this into something it’s not, but she can’t help but think that maybe she wants this to be something more, and now there’s shame coursing through her, she’s biting her lip hard, her hands are twitching, she can’t stop-

She’s stopped, freezes up as his hand rests firmly against her waist while his other hand finds her own and ever so gently entwines his fingers with hers again.

Just a while back, his hand was comforting in her own, and now she’s a nervous wreck. She realizes now, that she really is trying to turn this into something it’s not and god, she can’t stop herself now.

Skulduggery unsurprisingly moves with grace, his movements calm and controlled. Valkyrie on the other hand has already stepped on his toes multiple times, and she moves shakily. She struggles to focus, her heartbeat too loud for her to process anything else.

She barks out a laugh, tries desperately to fill the silence around them.

“This is weird. Like, there isn’t any music, and we’re dancing in the middle of nowhere at three in the morning. Isn’t this weird?” she says quickly, unsure of where she’s going with this or what point she’s trying to make.

He remains silent and she tilts her head down, chooses instead to watch how their feet move together, almost in sync, instead of trying to catch the occasional bouts of moonlight that illuminate his skull.

This is _so_ romantic, so lovely, so thoughtful on his part, and she can’t stand it, can’t stand what it’s doing to her.

They’ve been dancing for a while now, not too close to each other, but not too far apart either. She still hasn’t managed to relax and naturally, he notices this. And so he moves further away from her, his movements getting slower, but he doesn’t let go. His hand on her waist isn’t so tight anymore, isn’t so determined to hold her close.

The hole within her chest, she finds, is ever expanding.

They continue like this for a while, Valkyrie already done trying to relax, Skulduggery still refusing to let her go but keeping his distance.

She doesn’t want him to be distant, but she doesn’t know what to do.

“I’m not a stranger, Valkyrie,” he says softly and so, _so_ quietly, almost as if he needs to say this, but doesn’t know if he wants her to hear.

She can’t respond, doesn’t know if he even wants her to, so she nods, keeps her gaze trained on the ground.

Now it’s his turn to nod as he slowly, and seemingly reluctantly starts to slip his hand out of hers.

The cold air surrounds her hand, and she realizes she can’t see his feet anymore. He’s stepped back like she’s stung him and she swallows.

Her head snaps up, and she can already feel the need to have him holding her as he starts to let go, starts to walk backwards to their car. She realizes now that she can’t have this her way, can’t want so desperately to have him near her, yet refuse to treat him like anything but a stranger.

A tiny, horrible part of her wishes Kes was here to tell her what to do.

_You’re addicted to him._

Valkyrie presses her lips tightly together, nods once to herself.

She takes a shaky step towards him and maneuvers her hand around, slips her fingers between his, and holds his hand tighter than she has all night. He looks at her, doesn’t tilt his head to give her any sort of indication as to what he’s feeling, but he’s not protesting, so she deems it fit to continue.

They move together, now less like two people who have been forcefully paired, and more like two people who are comfortable with each other, best friends and partners, just like they’ve always been.

And no, she does not think they move like two lovers, not at all, not once, absolutely _not._

Their dance is a simple one, nothing too extravagant at all really, just like how Valkyrie wants it. They dance like two people who don’t care what they’re doing - they move so slow, close but not entirely so, all the while keeping their hands on each other.

Valkyrie thinks that maybe this dance is an excuse, an excuse to forget what’s happening around them, an excuse to hold each other. Not that he needs one of course, but she’s not very good at assuring him that he doesn’t.

Minutes pass, hours pass, maybe days, she doesn’t know. She’s lost all concept of time, doesn’t care for it anymore.

All she knows is here, her guilt has started to die away, the silence isn’t suffocating.

Occasionally, he’ll surprise her by swinging her around, moving her faster than he knows she can handle, watches her go stumbling, watches her laugh. She’s tripping over herself, slipping on the ground beneath them, her hair is in her eyes, and _god, is it good._

She’s absolutely breathless, and ecstatically so, as he dips her low, buries his head in her chest where he chuckles quietly, his velvety voice rumbling against her chest, against her heart.

She laughs with him, has her eyes shut for a few moments before she winces slightly, as she feels something wet lightly tap against her face.

She opens her eyes, and in just seconds, the light rain starts to get heavy.

He moves his hand to rest against her back, tilts his skull down into her shoulder and they hold there as the rain falls all around them. She knows he can feel her chest rise and fall quickly, knows it when he tightens his hold.

The rain batters against her body painfully and has now become a loud downpour. They’re quickly getting drenched, Valkyrie’s hair plastering itself onto her forehead, the brim of Skulduggery’s hat dripping water on to her nose.

She wonders why he hasn’t manipulated the rain around them, wonders why he stands there as still as a statue, letting the rain engulf them.

She fervently ignores the thought in her head that’s telling her he _wants_ this cliché, yet undeniably romantic moment.

After a few seconds, Skulduggery gently releases her and steps back, starts to make his way back to the car.   
  
She stops him.   
  
It’s been too long, she thinks, since her thoughts yielded. Hell, she knows she deserves thoughts as heavy as the rain right now, but she hasn’t felt this in a long time. And no, she doesn’t deserve it, but for once, she can’t bring herself to care.   
  
He tilts his head at her. “I hope you realize,” he enunciates slowly, “that my suit is quickly getting drenched.”   
  
She chooses not to bring up how he could have manipulated the rain and instead, she shrugs. “Right. So what?”   
  
“So I’d really rather not look any less immaculate than usual. Also, I’ll make you run along side the car before I let you ride in the Bentley, dripping in water.”   
  
She laughs. She doesn’t miss the slight twitching of his hand when she laughs, almost like he wants to hold her again. Almost like he’s so relieved to hear her laugh again.   
  
_I’ve missed that sound. You, laughing._   
  
Maybe, she thinks, for the millionth time this night and not without an ounce of shame, that she wants him to hold her. Wants to feel his cold bones press hard into her warm skin, the juxtaposition of it all being undoubtedly lovely. However, she quickly dismisses the thought, not willing to play it out, not willing to be wrong, and ruin something so, so perfect.   
  
She’s ruined so, so much. She took risks, skirted around the truth, let herself believe that she was capable of balancing it all.   
  
Once again, the memory comes back into her head, an image blasts within her mind. She’s seeing it again, like one of her visions except this has already happened. She sees the bright and blinding light surrounding her parents, and the absence of it around her sister. They’ve both been trying, every single day, for the past few weeks now to find a cure for Alice. They’ve made no progress.

She wonders if this is how it’ll be forever.

Reluctant as he is to stand in the unrelenting downpour any longer, he sees her eyes go blank, a look all too painfully familiar. So going against every instinct in his body, he steps closer to her.   
  
But there’s a new instinct now, one that’s been growing slowly over the years. One where nothing else matters, where he manages to push away his doubts and his silent fears because he just knows he has to. He has to for her, and like hell he’ll let anything get in the way of her joy which he yearns to see.

He pushes her matted hair away from her forehead, sees her look up at him, confused. He says nothing, just gently pulls her towards him.

They’re closer now, more than they’ve ever been.

She feels how he is reluctant, hesitant even, having her so close. She knows this is hard for him too, and that simple realization comforts her. 

_Well_ , she thinks, _fuck it._

She steps impossibly close to him, feels him stiffen immediately. She winces slightly, can already feel herself shrinking away, but ultimately refuses to do so. So she buries her face into his neck, winds her arms tight around him, closes her eyes and surrenders herself to the feel of the hard cold rain, his hard cold body.   
  
His hands are clutching the fabric of her drenched shirt tightly now. He digs his fingers into the fabric, twists it in his hands, almost like he’s desperately trying to feel her warm skin beneath.

When he had dipped her, he held her as close as he could. But now, they both refuse to have any space between them, refuse to let the unspoken feelings create a ridge between them.

These feelings, she knows, they must face one day. But today is not that day.

Today, they both play a game that Valkyrie’s become an expert at. They pretend, they ignore, and they do it so well. Ultimately it isn’t so bad, it’s still lovely, despite there being so many truths they’re skirting around, secrets they’re keeping from each other.

But everything they’ve done wrong to the world and to each other isn’t so hard to ignore when they hold each other so, so tightly.

She thinks that this dance is a moment of honesty itself - they silently acknowledge what’s caused their distance, and yet they still yearn to be wound tight together, joined, inseparable, just like how it should be, and how it will be, until the end.

The rain makes Valkyrie shiver and somehow, she still feels warm.

****

***

She’s doing up her seatbelt and Skulduggery’s already pulled out of the grass, and they’re back on the road again.

“Why? Why the dance?” she blurts, has wanted to ask him this since the night took an unexpected, but not necessarily horrible, turn.

He takes a while to response, steers the Bentley clear of a squirrel that’s scampered onto the road, and moves his car slowly back into the right lane.

“You just looked like you could do with a distraction, that’s all,” he responds. His voice, so typically calm and boastful, she notices has suddenly gone quiet.

“In hindsight however, the dance may have proven to only exemplify your anxiety. Of course, that was never my attention,” he continues, and now he laughs but it isn’t genuine.

Valkyrie’s heart swells and she doesn’t bother trying to stop the smile from splitting her face. She reaches out and grasps his arm gently, runs her thumb across it. He doesn’t stiffen this time.

“Thank you,” she whispers gently, honestly, as she reluctantly pulls her hand away from him.

He nods, remains silent, keeps his gaze fixed on the road ahead. She doesn’t expect any sort of response from him at all. She knows he isn’t comfortable with sentimentality, nor is he keen on showing how he’s feeling, even around her. She understands all this, and so she leans back in the car seat, satisfied, and-

Skulduggery reaches out and hastily, but still gently brushes her hair away from her eyes. As he pulls his hand back, he lets it trail down her arm slowly before he rests it back on the steering wheel. He manages to keep his hands off her for a few painful seconds, until his hand is sliding down the steering wheel and reaching out for her yet again, his fingers getting closer to caressing the soft, damp skin of her cheek.

His gloved fingers make contact with her skin and she sits up straighter, her lips parting slightly.

The car is completely silent. She can’t even hear her breathing, and she realizes now that she’s holding her breath.

He lets go of her, hasn’t managed to glance at her a single time. She swallows, and blinks at him.

Valkyrie, too stunned to do anything but continue to blink rapidly, is overtaken by his sudden affection that is so seldom made apparent to her. This, she thinks, is a welcomed change, to have him not be so closed off to her, to have him show his affection instead of covering it up by annoying her-

He quickly swipes his hand over her head a few times, thoroughly messing up her hair, and only pushing her hair back into her eyes, the same hair he had just brushed away. She scowls.

“What,” he chuckles, “did you honestly expect, Valkyrie?”

She’s openly glaring at him now, and he only laughs harder.

But of course, she knows this as well as he does, that she can only put up the pretense of being annoyed with him for so long before she caves, before her relief and her seldom felt joy breaks through.

And she’s fine with it, she’s fine with her glare turning into a wide grin, fine with the tiny wrinkles that she knows are surrounding her eyes right now.

He turns his head towards her fully now and takes a look at her relaxed demeanour, and she sees how immediately his body relaxes too. She doesn’t miss how he stares at her for more than a moment, for longer than necessary, his eye sockets trained on her.

Eyes to eye sockets they meet, truly, for the first time this night.

Maybe, just maybe, she’s as good for him as he is for her.


End file.
